Learning in Virtual Reality

After decades of false starts, the VR industry finally has mainstream attention along with products ready for business and consumer use; HTC’s Vive and Facebook’s Oculus Rift are here, and Sony are expecting to sell 9 million units of their PlayStation VR platform launching in time for the holiday season. Science fiction is becoming a reality - the first steps towards completely immersive virtual environments, not unlike Star Trek’s ‘Holodeck’, are available for consumers & businesses alike.

Here at dreamm HQ we have been following the developments of this upcoming industry for many years, and we received our HTC Vive development kit earlier this year. We’ve demonstrated this kit many times now and, without exception, the reaction is the same: jaws drop and smiles broaden as you put the headset on and step into another reality...another world.

So, what does this mean for the learning and technology industry? There has been a huge surge in interest from institutions and businesses across the planet, here’s a few interesting examples we’ve been reading about:

In the US, the astronaut training programme has adopted the HTC Vive for training purposes. The team at NASA have used the Vive’s extremely accurate “room-scale” tracking technology to build a virtual world; an interactive simulation of the International Space Station (ISS) interior. for experiencing all different kinds of scenarios in 3d space.

In the automotive world, BMW are using the same room-scale hardware to design their next range of automobiles. Their setup allows engineers to make tweaks to their designs, then immediately sit in the driver’s seat and experience in immersive 3d.

Virtual Reality is also enabling learners to visit places previously entirely inaccessible, from the surface of Mars to the ruins of Chernobyl. And now Google have release a VR version of Google Earth that has to be seen to be believed. It’s an exciting time for this medium and the opportunities are endless.

At dreamm we are excited for the future of learning solutions using VR. We have extensive experience with the 3D tools used to design and build these virtual reality experiences, and our R&D team are working on some exciting demos to show how this technology can be put to use by our clients.

Want to discuss your project that could utilise Virtual Reality, or perhaps want to stop by our Sheffield office for a demo? Get in touch today!